The end of BMI Diamond Club.

My heart sank when I saw the email come through this evening – Diamond Club will cease to exist from 30th November 2016.

Diamond Club has been running a minimal existence since 2012 when BMI got bought out by British Airways. It essentially existed only for holders of the MBNA-issued American Express cards. These had a decent grandfathered earning rate of 2.5 Avios per £1, and its Visa counterpart at 1.25 Avios per £1. The credit card will stop accruing points from 30th September 2016.

As points are transferred from the credit card issuer to the holder's account once per month, it is not clear whether this means transactions up to 30th September, but billed in October, will still get Avios, or that is last billing cycle. Unless you are an incredibly heavy spender it probably won't make much difference anyway.

Some of the non-UK domiciled readers on this blog will have a soft spot for BMI had an incredibly easy threshold for gold as well as a generous lifetime gold programme. After BA's acquisition it all got annulled (though BMI Golds were granted a status match to BA), before BA magically launching its own lifetime gold programme after 35000 Tier Points.

So it leaves me to say goodbye to a stalwart of the golden mileage era. It had a good innings.